BlackBerry CEO calls iPhone outdated

Thorsten Heins, CEO of BlackBerry, has called the iPhone outdated in an interview with the Australian Financial Review

Here at T3.com we know the rules of the corporate game, and a little trash talk is par for the course.

Interestingly in this case, BlackBerry has been the one to criticise the almighty Apple.

Thorsten Heins, the CEO of BlackBerry since January last year, has called Apple's iPhone UI dated when comparing it to the new BlackBerry 10 operating system the company unveiled earlier this year.

Mr Heins gives Cupertino the credit where it's due, saying: “Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market. They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that.”

But he moves on to point out that Apple hasn't altered it's UI since the introduction of the first iPhone back in 2007:

“History repeats itself again I guess … the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old,” he said.

Presumably off the back of a pretty successful reinvention and an impressive handset in the form of the BlackBerry Z10, the company feels it can take a little swipe at one of the biggest tech companies on the planet.

We would just humbly point out that the inclusion of a five-year-old UI doesn't appear to have hurt the iPhone 5's sales figures any.

For it's part, BlackBerry is due to reveal its quarterly earnings on March 28, which will give us a good look at how the launch of the Z10 and its twin, the BlackBerry Q10 has been received by paying customers.